Trying out new things.

Lots of things have been keeping me very busy this week. Writing for HandMadeNews.org is proving to be even more fun than I had anticipated. I just love putting together these little articles and I love seeing them be published through this fabulous site. At this point, I have two articles published under the Just for Fun dept. and I just submitted two more to my editor this morning.

My creative focus seems to be a bit choppy though and I haven't been able to bring any projects to a finish the past little while. I've started several pieces, including a cherry tree banzai tree and a bouquet of red chrysanthemums.

Here's an in progress picture of the chrysanthemum bouquet.



The flowers are a very basic shape. My focus was more on the colour. There are 2 colors of red beads in this arrangement, strung on 2 different colour of wire. The overall effect gives 4 different hues of red. There will be a total of 16 blooms in this bouquet. Hopefully, the colour variation will come out nicely. I'm thinking of adding a few white wild flowers to the mix, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I spent the last little bit this afternoon trying my hand at something I hadn't done before. Wire wrapped jewelery. Here's what I came up with:




One of my favorite beaded flower supply is actually the wire. I bought several spools of 26 gauge copper wire a while back and I just love the way it feels and looks. It's very soft and warm and has a beautiful sheen.



I combined the wire with natural rose quartz that I had left over from another project.





So what do you think? Should I expand my creative outlet and make more jewelery of this type? The jewelery market is already loaded with very talented artisans, but it's just so much fun to make. Give me some feedback. I'd love to hear what you have to say!

Sunday projects

I spent a nice quiet day getting some new pieces done up.
I received a large parcel from an aunt of mine this week, she's very much into crafting and occasionally sends me her surplus. This time she sent me a bunch of seed beads!
There were some interesting beads in there that I really wanted to showcase. Here is the first piece.



The second thing I got done up was a little pair of hair clips. Very simple and cute with faux pearl centers.



As a small thank you gift to this aunt, I will be sending her this brooch tomorrow.



Hopefully she'll like it!

One of my goals for June is to complete another bouquet, but this time I want to make all the flower various shades of white and use different types of beads. I've started a lily with very tiny faux pearls. Check back often to see progress pictures on this project!

HandMadeNews.org

Being a member on Artfire is a gateway to other fabulous opportunities, one of them is HandMadeNews.org. It's an online mag published by Artfire, with a constant supply of fresh new articles written up by fellow artisans covering "News of the hand made world, or just the crafts in in".

I've been reading some of the articles over the past week and have found some really interesting, and funny pieces. The handmade crowd is definitely a fun bunch. Then I noticed they were looking for new editors, columnist and contributors. My first reaction was "Oh I'd love to do that, but I would never be good enough to write a column". That was Tuesday night. I had a wrestles sleep that night and woke up feeling an intense pressure to reevaluate my priorities on this matter. I thought about it all day and after hours of giving myself a pep talk, I figured, "what have I got to lose?".

I sent in my application Wednesday night and I have to admit, writing that 250 word sample article was easy as pie and fun once I'd decided on a subject. I've always loved writing, and it's been a not so secret fantasy of mine to be a publish writer ever since I was a little girl. Blogging has been great in that it allows me to self publish all the time and I get immense satisfaction from having my "stuff" posting online.

So once I'd handed in my application I waited, and waited for what seemed like an eternity. While driving my husband to the airport this morning, I asked him how long he thought I should wait before sending them an email to verify if they had even received my application (irrational fear of internet submission failure...) and he said, "Oh wait at least a week". What?!! This is the internet, land of instant transactions, instantaneous Twitter updates and over night celebrities. I couldn't imagine waiting that long.

When I got home a little while ago, I checked my email and noticed a response had come in from HMN. Yesterday!!! How could I have missed it? Turns out all my self doubt and anxious anticipation of possible rejection were all for nothing. They were "very impressed" and would love to have me join their team.

So far my start in business has been great. One week in and I've got a great shop on Artfire that people really seem to like, I have a spot at this years Jost Winery Christmas Open House to sell at their little craft market and now this. Can't wait to find out what other opportunities will come knocking on my door.

The strength of a community

This past week has been nothing if not busy. Between my day job, husband/pet obligations and sleep I squeeze in a few hours every evening furthering my artistic pursuits and consequent success in business. (Hopefully)

I spend a considerable amount of time online during this segment of my day, perusing business/handmade related articles, blogs, and forums trying to find some nugget of inspiration, business savvy or opportunity. Well this evening, the third option fell right in my lap and I was so hugely impressed with what I found, I just had to share it.

indieartsstudio is an online catalog of handmade artisans. If you're shopping for handmade goods, this place is the one stop spot! I'm so impressed by this simple little site because of it's lack of pretense. It's totally a "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" type of thing. Both shoppers and sellers stand to gain big from this. It's all about pulling together and making the most of what handmade artisans have to offer. The big economy is in the pits, lets have a go at doing it small, for ourselves and our online community. Now that's a sentiment I can get behind.